


a little unsteady

by koganewest



Series: KWmonth [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Neglect, Orphan Keith (Voltron), POV Keith (Voltron), Whump, basically in which i hurt keith a lot, lonlieness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 15:30:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16390334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koganewest/pseuds/koganewest
Summary: collection of oneshots for KWmonth





	1. naxcela

**Author's Note:**

> you can find the prompt list [here!](https://koganewest.tumblr.com/post/178587594915/the-lovely-callaeidae3-and-i-have-drafted-prompts)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Keith makes a sacrifice to save his found family, and Lotor shows up a few seconds too late."

It’s not a difficult decision.

If he looked throughout his life, he could easily identify instances in which shaped him to be the person he is currently. Because the reality of his life was this: he’d known isolation better than anything.

He’d known isolation on his first day of school in kindergarten, when he’d watched the other children in his class say goodbye to their tearful mothers. His dad had never mentioned why he didn’t have a mother, and Keith had never asked. He didn’t understand at the time, but he came to know that it made him different from everyone else. It made him an outsider.

He’d known isolation entering the group home, when the younger children ran around him, playing games, dreaming of being adopted. Throughout the time he spent there, he watched kids come and go. When he asked the woman in charge when it would be his turn to be adopted, she assured him that no one would ever want to adopt a “discipline case” like him.

He’d known isolation at the Garrison, when other students stayed as far away from him as possible. They’d whisper about him, about how he was good without trying, about how Shiro was the only reason he was there. And when he didn’t go home for winter break, a rumor spread that he had no family because he’d run away from them. If only they’d known the opposite was true.

He’d known isolation on the day of the Kerberos launch, when the last person he had left flew away from him, toward possible death. And months later, when they received word of the failure, he had no one to turn to as he fled to the roof, staring at the stars, tears on his cheeks.

He’d even known isolation when he was a part of Team Voltron. After all, he was the loner.

And yet despite all of this, Keith doesn’t even hesitate when he flies into the shield.

This team has been the closest thing he’s ever had to a family. They have stood by him through his best and his worst, and never once abandoned him. He chose to fight with the Blade in order to keep Voltron as efficient as possible. They didn’t need him anyway.

He flies into the shield to save them. Because even though they didn’t need him anymore, they didn’t leave him behind.

To him, they’re worth dying for.

He closes his eyes before he’s about to hit the barrier and sees the faces of his team when they’d stared down at him with resentment, hostility, disappointment for his lack of dedication. That was when he made up his mind to leave Voltron. He never wanted to see them disappointed in him again.

Now, he hopes to make them proud.

And for a second, he just tries to process it what he’s about to do. When he opens his eyes, he’s hurdling forward with increasing speed. He waits impatiently for the impending crash.

His hands shake.

His face burns.

His heart pounds.

Then he feels the jolt. In an instant, a pain so intense takes over his entire body as he’s being ripped from the ship. He knows he’s screaming, but he can’t hear anything over the sound of the explosion.

And then, silence.

The sound of the impact is long gone, along with Matt’s screaming over the comms. In its wake is utter silence: so peaceful and so intense that Keith dares not to disrupt it no matter how much he wants to scream. The pain eats away at him, starting in his legs and burning all the way up to his neck. His head is pounding, and he can’t see anymore.

Even if he could see, he’d know what he would find: a large shard of metal embedded in his side.

Keith can practically feel the blood draining from his body near the wound, and his suspicion is confirmed as he becomes dizzy with the sensation. It almost doesn’t hurt. He’s almost too delirious to notice the searing agony throughout his body.

Almost.

In the back of his mind, he can feel Red’s concern. Anxiety and worry pervade his thoughts, but even she seems to understand that there’s no saving him. Keith can feel her sorrow and regret, but he knows she isn’t coming to save him. Her only job now is to make sure Voltron and its paladins are safe.

It takes everything in Keith to just breathe. He knows he’s dying, so why should he have to prolong it? But something keeps him going. He isn’t quite sure what it is.

He still can only see blackness. His eyes refuse to open.

But his hearing is starting to return. There’s mostly static filling his ears, yet it almost sounds like there’s a voice hidden among it. Or maybe multiple voices.

It’s his team. They’re cheering. 

The practical part of Keith reassures him that they aren’t happy because he’s dead. He knows they wouldn’t cheer if they knew. But as their voices fade to static, it gets harder to believe. 

Did they really hate him that much?

Now, the noises he hears are from his memories, and they’re all reminders of how he was a burden to them.

He hears Pidge’s voice first, deeming him the loner of the group. When Pidge had said that, Keith brushed it off like it was nothing. But when he was alone later that day, he’d thought about it. He really was the loner of the group. He didn’t fit in with the rest of them. They were all noble heroes, fighting for their families, while Keith was only there because there was nothing left for him on Earth. He never had fit in with them.

And then Hunk’s voice overpowers hers, joking about his Galra blood. When Keith found out about his alien heritage, a lot of things started to make sense to him. Of course he was part of a race of bloodthirsty monsters. That was why he was so hostile and untrusting. That was why no one on Earth wanted him. Hunk’s words had hurt, even if he was joking.

Allura is next. In just a few short phrases in which she overlooks Keith, he feels the resentment she harbored toward him. She must have never fully forgiven him for being Galra. After all, he’d been the one to pilot Red, who once belonged to her father. How could she not hate Keith? After all, he represented the very people who took her father away from her.

And then it’s Lance’s turn. A myriad of instances flood his brain in which Lance had pushed Keith away. All the “harmless” insults and teasing rivalry came to haunt Keith. The truth was that Lance never wanted him around, especially not to lead Voltron. While Keith had thought Lance was his right hand, Lance must have just been waiting for the day Keith left, so things could go back to normal.

Last was Shiro. But Keith didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t bear it. He screams, so loud and so piercing, that he thinks he bursts his own eardrums. The pain throughout his body increases as his stomach tenses up with the outcry.

Blood seeps faster from the wound.

Keith starts to fade out of consciousness.

He never does hear Shiro’s words.

“Good job, Keith.”


	2. trials of marmora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Then you've chosen to be alone."

The trials take a lot out of Keith.

Though he hadn’t expected it to be an easy task, he didn’t think he’d be fighting a losing battle. The number of skilled warriors kept increasing, and Keith was starting to weaken. But he refused to give in.

He persists to prove he’s a valiant soldier, that he deserves to keep the blade, that he deserves to know the truth of his past. For so long, the mystery of his estranged mother has followed him, like a dark shadow that eroded his trust and left him with a distinct emptiness. Maybe the truth of this knife will free him from unhappiness. Maybe he can learn to love without fear or restraint.

But no matter how much he’s driven by this dream, he doesn’t know if he has the strength to continue for much longer.

Keith’s shoulder, which had been had been lacerated by one of the warriors, aches deeply. He can feel blood beginning to seep through his suit, slow and agonizing. When the next group of fighters stand in front of him, Keith has to withhold a yelp of distress. He doesn’t think he can do this again.

And then he has an idea.

Before the trap door closes, he musters all the strength he can to throw his knife toward the floor. To his luck, it wedges between the closing door and prevents it from moving. Maneuvering through the soldiers, he manages to grab his blade before going into the passage.

The movement must cause him to lose too much blood, because he loses consciousness within his next few steps.

When he wakes up merely seconds later, Shiro is standing over him.

With a few kind words, Shiro helps him to his feet. Though Keith is now clumsy and weary with the searing pain throughout his body, he manages to stumble into Shiro. He’s just dying for this to be over, for when Shiro can congratulate him and they can go back to the castle.

But what he gets from Shiro isn’t what he wants to hear.

Shiro repeats for him to just give up the knife, but no matter how much Keith wants to listen, he can’t. “I can’t give it to them, Shiro.”

His response to Keith is harsh and cutting, but it doesn’t dissuade Keith yet. He’s spent his whole life waiting for answers, searching for nothing, and he isn’t about to give up now. Especially not when he’s just so close. “It’s the only connection I have to my past. It’s my chance to learn who I really am.”

But Shiro snaps at him again, telling Keith that Voltron is the only family he needs. Still, Keith isn’t convinced. He softens his tone at Shiro, reminding him of their bond, and insists that he needs to do this. And still, Shiro pushes back.

“You’re only thinking of yourself, as usual.”

The words admittedly strike a nerve in Keith, and he sighs in disappointment. He tries to reason with Shiro, wants him to just understand, but it doesn’t work.

Keith says he’s made his choice. Shiro says he’s chosen to be alone.

Immediately, he regrets what he’s done, because the last thing Keith ever wanted was to be alone again. Losing Shiro was the worst thing that had happened to him in ages, and he’s not about to experience it again.

But when he chases after Shiro, the room changes again. Suddenly, he finds himself in his father’s shack.

It’s the most painful thing in the world to see his father again. The last time he’d seen the man, he was covered in ash, lifeless on a stretcher. Now, to look at him alive and healthy is like a knife to his gut.

His dad’s voice only twists the knife even further. It’s slow like molasses and sweet like honey. Keith wants to wrap himself in the sound like it’s a blanket. But within a few words, his tone changes to something akin to hostility. He threatens Keith with the knowledge of his past, a mention of his estranged mother, trying to keep him from the chaos outside the shack window.

But even his deceased father can’t stop Keith from doing what’s right.

When he leaves, his chest aches even more than his shoulder does. But he wakes up to Shiro, and together they stand to take on the Blade warriors.

Now, Keith knows when to stop.

He surrenders the blade, and it awakens in his hand. Just as his nightmares had suspected, he is a part of the Galra race. He is a part of the vicious people who brought chaos to the universe. He is a part of evil.

Still, he doesn’t process much as he and Shiro leave the headquarters with Kolivan. And even when they dock, Keith still barely knows what’s going on. His head is foggy and pounding, preventing anything from pervading the blockade he has constructed.

He puts on a facade when they dock the ship, and keeps it until everyone has left. Then, he allows his shoulders to sag and his back to hunch.

The wound on his shoulder stings with each movement as he limps toward his room. What he really wants is a hot bath, some lemonade to increase his blood sugar, and a long nap. Truthfully, the latter masks his attempt to sleep off the trauma. It’s too much for Keith to deal with in one day. He still hasn’t processed any of it.

The Galra have spent years wreaking havoc upon anything in their reach. Maybe Keith’s mother had been manipulative. Maybe she forced his father into creating the first human/galra hybrid. Maybe she took one look at Keith when he was born and decided she couldn’t raise him. Maybe she took one look at Keith when he was born and decided she just didn’t love him.

By the time he collapses into bed after a brief shower, he still hasn’t processed it.

(He doesn’t process it until he notices Allura’s behavior.)

(And even then, he doesn’t stick up for himself.)

(After all, he is the enemy.)


	3. orphan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith learns self-sufficiency through trial and error. It isn't easy.

Keith learns one surprising fact within a week of living on the streets of El Paso: he misses showering the most.

He misses everything about being clean, but mostly the hot water, the towels, the overall feeling of freshness. The grime on his skin is beginning to become a part of him, as are the clothes he wore when he left. The large white t-shirt is now discolored and torn, making Keith look even more disheveled than he should, and his shorts are brown with dirt. He’s a mess.

Getting the money to buy food is a lot easier than he’d imagined, but he attributes that to his age. He looks quite pitiable, so people throw change at him often.

They keep their distance, though.

No one asks him if he needs a place to stay. No one makes eye contact with him for too long. No one comments on his black eye or the handprints around his neck. No one cares.

He supposes they’re probably just scared of him. Pedestrians regard him like a feral cat, or a dog with mange - never getting too close, never risking their own safety. They don’t care what their actions make him feel, as long as they’re beneficial to them.

But Keith has known the selfish nature of humans. None of this is any surprise.

Really, he just wants a shower.

The requests for money now turn into requests to be lodged, if only for the night. Keith pleads for a place to stay, but he never gets more than a second look. He can’t even pretend it doesn’t hurt - but he can pretend that he’s used to the pain.

After all, he’d spent a long time pretending to be okay.

A day goes by, and no one takes Keith in. So the obvious solution (to his twelve-year-old brain) is to take matters into his own hands. He’s going to break into an apartment.

The first challenge is picking the building: he doesn’t want to wander too far into the impoverished districts in fear of psycho drug-addicts, and he doesn’t want to enter the richer areas in fear of security systems. So he chooses somewhere in the middle.

After randomly selecting a ground-level target where no one is home, Keith begins breaking a window with a rock. The second it shatters, Keith breaks away the fragments to get in.

Swinging his feet over to land in the apartment, he declares it a success. 

He has to be quick, though, he reminds himself during his search for the bathroom. Shedding his clothing as quickly as possible, Keith jumps into the stream of hot water and lets out a noise of contentment. Oh, how he’d missed this.

Still, he can’t afford the luxury of self-indulgence. He washes up to the most minimal extent before getting out and wrapping himself in a nearby towel.

This is what his life had come to.

Keith has to give himself a little credit. After being brought up under the care of a loving father, he thinks he’s adjusted to self-sufficiency pretty well. He’s like a modern day Robin Hood. Except the rich are just lower middle class, and the poor is him. He’s just helping himself get by. And he’s doing a damn good job.

That’s why he decides that he deserves a nap. In the bed. In the apartment. In a place that he does not belong.

But the shower has made him sleepy, and he hasn’t really gotten rest in days. It’s difficult sleeping with one eye open, waiting for danger, avoiding police that would bring him right back to the awful people he’d escaped from.

Keith deserves this nap. Just for once, he wants to sleep with a semblance of safety.

He sleeps for nearly 5 hours before the owner of the apartment finds him asleep in the bed. The woman yells and screams a lot, demanding that he leave her home right this minute.

She doesn’t hit him, though. And she doesn’t call the police.

Keith considers it a victory.

(When did his definition become so pathetic?)


	4. fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: "I had an idea of Keith getting captured and tortured by Sendak (in between se6 and 7) and they remind him his painful childhood memories. And even worst, they remind him every detail of how his dad (who was a firefighter) left to bring out people of a burning house and never came back. And they do it everyday to him, so he loses his mind and goes crazy. His Galra side is fully awaken and... u know, I just want my heart to buuurn can u do this?"

He’d spent days toeing the line between life and death. 

Sendak, though relentless in every possible way, had be merciful enough to revive him after every agonizing day. Or maybe he just enjoyed having so much power over someone’s life. He could decide whether Keith lived or died. He could play god without any consequence - it didn’t matter to him what happened to the paladin. 

Keith is tortured a different way each time; he gets beaten up first, then electrocuted, then drowned, then left in a freezer. But he survives each time as well, despite the fact that he hasn’t been fed anything the entire time he’d been held hostage. 

It’s tolerable. Keith manages. 

Until he wakes up to flames. Immediately, he screams - so loud and so desperate that his lungs burn with the sensation of it. Panic floods throughout his brain, freezing his limbs so he can’t move from the table he’s laid on. But as the heat begins to become overwhelming, instinct kicks in for Keith to flee. That is, until he realizes he can’t. He’s tied to the table. He can’t move. 

Despite the irrationality of his actions, he continues to scream and thrash. Of course, his efforts are utterly fruitless. No one comes to free him, and he can’t break from the restraints. His captors have officially figured out his worst nightmare. 

Out of nowhere, he can feel his canine teeth sharpen involuntarily and his eyes widen reflexively. Then it makes sense: his Galran genes have been awakened by fear survival instinct. 

It’s no use, though. 

And suddenly, it’s like he’s eight again and sobbing helplessly into his hands, just as his father runs back into the building. Everything around him is ablaze and, god, he just wants his dad to come out of the fire. Why did he leave? Why did he go? Why isn’t he back yet? 

Keith screams for himself and for his father, who had met his end in the same fiery haze Keith will soon succumb to. His father had probably felt that same encompassing fear as the red flames overtook his vision. Keith probably feels the same hidden pride for saving people with his own demise. They probably felt the same strange peace as smoke pervaded their lungs, and they took their last breath. They probably saw the same light as their eyes closed. 

The difference between Keith and his father? 

Keith lives. 

(His father does not.)


	5. nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith has a hard time forgetting.

It’s been years.

Still, Shiro’s voice grows more malicious by the second as he looms over Keith. His steps are loud and forceful, approaching Keith with increasing anger. It’s beyond intimidating; in fact, it’s downright scary watching Shiro acting so malicious. He hates being on the receiving end of such a look.

“I should’ve abandoned you,” Shiro snarls with frightening hostility, “just like your parents did.” The words echo in his head repeatedly, and it creates a sickly churning in his stomach. Keith wants to scream so badly, but he can’t move. He wants to cry.

It’s been years.

And still, it hurts just as bad as ever.

“They saw that you were broken, worthless,” he says, narrowing his eyes as he glares. Keith can’t do anything but remain where he is, frozen in place. His eyes burn, threatening to tear up, but Keith forces himself to blink it all away.

“I should’ve seen it too.”

Keith knows what the words mean. I never should’ve wasted my time on you. I should’ve given up ages ago. You were never worth my time. You were never worth anything. You deserve to be alone. You don’t deserve to live.

And with that, he wakes up with a start.

His breathing catches in his throat, causing him to choke a bit. After coughing into his elbow, his hands find their way to his hair to tug, to pull, to do anything. Anything to distract him from the awful memory.

Beside him, Lance stirs. The last thing Keith wants is to bother his husband, but he doesn’t think he can calm down on his own.

Carefully, he nudges Lance’s arm, whispering his name.

And thankfully, Lance wakes up easily. Worry immediately etches his features and furrows his brow. He doesn’t even have to ask Keith what’s wrong because, after years of the same routine, Lance just knows.

He knows to open his arms for Keith, who graciously nestles himself into the embrace. He buries his face in Lance’s neck and sighs.

“You had that nightmare again?” Lance questions, just to break the silence. So Keith just nods, unable to respond. His hands grip Lance’s old hoodie as he breathes in the scent for comfort. It’s reassuring. It’s home. His gravelly voice slows Keith’s rapid heart rate. “It’s okay, Keith, I’ve got you.”

And for now, that’s all he needs to hear.


	6. abandoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He should be used to this by now.

Keith should’ve known better. Despite the innumerable amount of times he’s been lied to, he foolishly believes his mother when she makes a promise to him. He foolishly believes his mother when she says she’ll never leave him again. 

It’s not a feeling foreign to Keith. He’s known betrayal since the day he lost his father in that fire. Or even before that, when his mother decided she didn’t want to raise him. And truthfully, Keith should’ve seen the red flags. No one just stops being a flight risk.

Keith should’ve known better. But that fact doesn’t lessen the hurt. 

His mother leaves him again, just as he’d come to trust her. He hears Lance talking to Hunk later that day, appalled by Krolia’s actions. They both agree that their own mothers would never have done what Keith’s mother did. They say that their mothers would never leave, especially if they’d done what Krolia had when Keith was born. 

Their words don’t change anything, though.

She still isn’t around as they approach Earth. She still isn’t around to help him through the struggles of leading an intergalactic war. She still isn’t around as he brings Sendak down for the final time. She still isn’t around when he loses consciousness. She still isn’t around when they pull his seemingly lifeless body from Black. She still isn’t around for the weeks he sleeps in a hospital bed. 

During the time Keith spends fading in and out of lucidity, he hears Shiro talking to Kolivan on some new device, demanding to talk to Krolia. Then, Keith hears Shiro tell Krolia that he thinks she should be there for when Keith wakes properly. 

Thanks to Shiro, she is there when he does. 

(Keith can’t help but acknowledge that she didn’t willingly choose to be there for him. But then again, it’s not the first time she didn’t choose him.)


	7. discipline case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does he deserve the label? Keith thinks that maybe he does.

Keith doesn’t know how he hears his teacher’s words, but they immediately trigger a plethora of emotions.

Discipline case.

Almost immediately, he feels that same gut-wrenching pain that he experienced when he’d been hosted by his first and only foster family. They were the ones that convinced his social worker that he couldn’t fit in with host families. His foster father was the reason he was stuck in a group home.

The worst part was that Keith hadn’t even been difficult. Sure, he would refuse meals and not speak voluntarily, but he never had outwardly caused them trouble. He did his best to stay detached and not be any more burdensome than he already felt. Apparently, he hadn’t done a good job of that.

His social worker, Anne, comes for him within a month.

Hiding behind a sofa, Keith hears the conversation between his foster father and Anne. He accuses Keith of being cold and distant first, which is admittedly true. Then, he claims that Keith was rude and hostile when they tried to welcome him, which was far from the truth. They had never attempted to welcome him! In fact, they had barely even acknowledged his existence during his time with them.

He certainly didn’t expect such bad feedback. He told Anne this much later, and she just shook her head sadly and brushed it off. “No matter how you acted, I unfortunately have to include their complaints in the report. There’s nothing more I can do, Keith.”

And that was how he ended up in a group home.

Every night as he tucks himself under the covers, he has to wish on stars for better luck. He wishes that his dad is okay, wherever he is. He wishes that he can one day escape from the system that’s done him no good. He wishes that he won’t always feel so hopeless and insignificant. He wishes that one day, someone will love him in return.

For now, wishing on the stars is enough. One day, he’ll be more than just a discipline case.


End file.
